Explosions rattled Kyiv during daylight on Monday as Russian ballistic missiles took aim at the Ukrainian capital, hours after a more common nighttime barrage of the city by drones and cruise missiles.
Russian forces fired 11 ballistic and cruise missiles at Kyiv at about late morning, according to Ukraine's chief of staff, Valerii Zaluzhnyi. All of them were shot down, he said, and puffs of white smoke could be seen in the blue sky over the city from street level.
Debris from the intercepted missiles fell in Kyiv's central and northern districts, landing in the middle of traffic on a city road and also starting a fire on the roof of a building, the Kyiv military administration said. At least one civilian was reported hurt.
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The blasts unnerved some locals, already under strain after being awakened by the night attack.
"After what happened last night, I react sharply to every siren now. I was terrified, and I'm still trembling," shared Alina Ksenofontova, a 50-year-old woman who took refuge in the Kyiv subway with her dog Bublik.
The central station, Teatralna, was crowded with sheltering locals.
Artem Zhyla, a 24-year-old who provides legal services abroad, took his laptop with him and kept working underground.
"I heard two or three explosions, went to the bathroom, and then I heard five or seven more explosions. That's when I realised something terrible was happening," he said.
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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and first lady Olena Zelenska both posted a video of what they said were frightened schoolchildren running and screaming down a Kyiv street toward a bomb shelter as sirens wailed.
Russia used Iskander short-range missiles in the morning attack, the spokesman for Ukraine's air force said on local television.
The Russian Defence Ministry said it launched a series of strikes on Monday targeting Ukrainian air bases with precision long-range air-launched missiles. The strikes destroyed command posts, radars, aircraft and ammunition stockpiles, it claimed. It didn't say anything about hitting cities or other civilian areas.
During the previous night, Ukraine air defences brought down more than 40 targets as Russian forces bombarded Kyiv with a combination of drones and cruise missiles in their 15th nighttime attack on the capital so far this month, said Serhii Popko, the head of Kyiv's military administration.
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